Matt The DJ

The Early Years

As a DJ, Matt has worked on several stations. His career started on Chelmer FM back in 1999. Matt became the School Caller for William De Ferrers School. Essentially, the slot was about the news from within the school and each week Matt would relay the details of the school's events to the listeners to Chelmer's Breakfast show. Matt continued this through until he left the school in July 2001

A teacher at the school spotted how much Matt enjoyed himself doing the school call and put him in touch with Hospital Radio Chelmsford where Matt started in March 2000. Matt became part of the Thursday Night Request Team, collecting requests from the patients of Broomfield Hospital and then playing them on the show. In September 2001 he left Thursday nights and graduated to his own Sunday Afternoon slot called The Happy Hour.

The Happy Hour was a simple concept. Buy one hour, get one free, and ran from 5pm to 7pm for over three years. Matt experiemented with different ideas like Cover Classic (two songs, the original and a cover version), The Guiness World Record of the Weird (a bizarre world record) and the Top Ten List (normally something quite odd). The show ended in December 2004.

Uni or Career?

September 2003 bought a difficult decision. Uni or career? Matt turned down a place at Westminster University to concentrate on his radio work. Radio in Chelmsford had changed. Tindle Radio had purchased Chelmer FM and converted it to Dream 107.7, but luckily a friend of Matt's was in touch with Nick Hull, then news editor of the station. Matt was invited down to take a look around. Following on from this, Matt was put on the list of volunteers who could help out when the roadshows came around.

In May 2004, Matt moved into commercial radio as part of the Phoenix FM RSL. Presenting the mid-morning show for four weeks he bought with him the Guiness World Record of the Weird as well as the 10:30 Tea Break Tune (a long song for your tea break). It was here where Matt got his first taste for interviews, having regular guests drop in as well as some one-off interviews.

Virtually straight off the back of this, Matt was invited up to Dream 107.7 again. Nick, (now programme controller) wanted someone to help out in the office and Matt was willing to do it. He worked for three months unpaid until the new Station Manager decided Matt should be on the payroll.

The Dream Job

In October 2004, Matt became part of the Dream 107.7 on air team, taking over the Early Breakfast show and being on hand to cover Weekend Evenings. One of the key new features to Matt's shows would be the riddle. More on that soon! Meanwhile, Matt was called in to cover some weekday evening shows too, though all of these were pre-recorded. To keep the money rolling in, Matt was working as Traffic Manager for the station, as well as being on hand to do anything else they required from setting up outside broadcasts to collecting requests from the public.

Christmas 2004 and cover was needed again. This time live! On Christmas Day Matt presented the Breakfast Show, being live on Dream for the first time. This was followed by Boxing Day & New Year's Day cover too. It went so well that Matt did some live cover on the weekends doing Saturday Afternoons and Sunday Requests.

In March 2005 another vacancy came up for a Saturday afternoon presenter and Matt filled the gap. It would be here Matt's riddle would thrive becoming incredibly popular with the listeners jamming the phonelines in what was traditionally a very quiet hour. By the end of March, Matt was pre-recording weekday Early Breakfast & Evening full time as well as presenting Saturday afternoons live and doing his day job of Station Assistant.

However, things began to take a turn in May. Tindle had decided to network the evening show from the sister station in Colchester, so Matt lost that. Additionally, in the same week Matt was informed that a station restructure meant he would no longer have a day job of Station Assistant, although Dream were willing to keep him on as a Freelance Presenter.

Matt began to apply to other stations for Freelance work but continued with Dream through the summer, with the highlight being tech-oping the Live 8 Broadcast until 1am! Yet at the end of July Matt recieved another blow saying that Dream couldn't keep him on as a freelance presenter. Matt's career at Tindle was over.

The Start of Freelancing

Unsure of his next move, but armed with the insider info that his shows had helped raise the Q2 2005 RAJAR sweep at Dream, it was a relief when Matt finally got a positive response from the tapes he'd sent out two months earlier from Mix 107 Programme Controller Andy Muir. Andy was looking to increase his freelance pool and was impressed with Matt's demo tape. After a meeting Matt did some training to learn how to use ENCO and within a month he was back on the airwaves covering weekday mid-mornings. Matt spent much of October travelling from his home in Essex to Buckinghamshire daily to cover the shows.

At the end of October, Andy offered a regular Saturday Morning slot at the station, which Matt duly accepted! He took over the 10am to 2pm slot at the end of November 2005 .

On top of this, Matt followed up an advert for Freelance Presenters at Colchester Garrison Radio and they gave Matt his first stint covering their weekday Breakfast show in November 2005.

Now

Throughout 2006 Matt was busy freelancing for both stations. At Mix 107 he worked on Mid Mornings and Drivetime during the week, plus Bank Holiday Breakfast, and Easy Sunday, in addition to his regular Saturday Morning show. Meanwhile there were three weeks at Garrison Radio covering their Breakfast show too. In August 2005, Matt was asked to be temporary Station Manager whilst the search was on for a new Manager. After a four week stint, the management for Garrison Radio were impressed with his work and offered him a three month contract as Station Representative.

This was reviewed in January 2007 when Matt's position was upgraded to that of Station Manager, Matt's first full time position since leaving Dream in 2005.

As well as spending the weekdays in Colchester, Matt continued to present the Saturday morning show at Mix 107 in Bucks until the end of 2006 where he chose to leave to concentrate on Garrison.

In August 2007, Matt took the decision to leave Garrison with no work lined up, but fate intervened and Matt was offered a job based at Fresh Radio in Skipton as a Traffic Assistant for the Laser Broadcasting Stations. He made the move to Yorkshire, however after just two and a half months he jumped to ITV to work with the CITV channel!